CIPPIC Granted Leave to Intervene in Data Case, BC v Philip Morris

- 2017-12-06 -

CIPPIC has been granted leave to intervene in Her Majesty the Queen in Right of British Columbia v. Philip Morris International, Inc., SCC No. 37524. The case involves the defendant's pre-trial discovery of the health-related databases of B.C. in the province's action against for recovery of the health care costs to the province caused by Philip Morris' tobacco products. CIPPIC's intervention will address (1) privacy and the risks of re-identification, (2) the need for those affected by government decisions based on large dataset to be able to challenge the data itself and to test (and contest) the algorithms used to arrive at its analyses, and (3) how to balance privacy with accountability in this context.

The case raises important issues about the right to challenge the outcomes of analytics performed on large data sets. As governments increase their reliance on big data and algorithmic decision-making technologies, privacy and government accountability will be increasingly at issue and, at times, at odds.